Good Officials And Boston Being Flattened By Deflate-Gate Inaction

It would be nice to think that every result of professional sports competitions would remain exclusive to the arena of competition, but I am here to further my theory that God is a serious football fan, and HE, much like the rest of us, must be wondering why the NFL has not given an official response to the matter of Deflate-Gate. Whether the footballs were deflated on purpose or not should be secondary to the necessity of punishing someone for allowing it to happen.


What is a good official?

The problem is that nothing has been properly officiated in this matter, whether on the field or off.  Why not establish a penalty that happens during the game for infractions that are discovered during the game- even deflations?  This problem began with bad officiating and continues for the same reason.  No punishment will fit the crime now, it will only tarnish the image of all of those involved, especially those responsible for officiating things like this.

Now the matter is out of the hands of the game officials (Roger Goodell included) and has been elevated to an ethereal realm of retribution.  Karmic gods impact every game, but most of the time their balancing act occurs before the final buzzer sounds.  The league of manufactured story lines tried its darn'dest to quiet the Patriot infraction that it discovered and fixed at halftime (were New York game officials also informed), but  to date they continue to delay punishment until they can clear as much dust as possible.

Officials failed us all, and now, even the reputation of good officials are being tainted by this unchallenged infraction. Good leaders realize that what must be done eventually is best done immediately.  Good officials understand this frame of thought too and use it to succeed in their inexact role of game officiating. A good official will also unashamedly give make-up calls because they realize that it free's them from tilting the sports karma unfairly against one team or another.  The more you coach or officiate games, you eventually are forced to accept that there really are angels in the outfield- so to speak, and sports karma is both real and exacting. From top to bottom, deflate-gate has been so poorly officiated that it can never be properly penalized, so it needed  karmic elevation to well above the NFL commissioner's pay grade. From on high if you will.

Every sport has karmic god's and good officials establish a goal of consistent calls, not perfect ones, since perfection is a concept that comes from on high as well.  A good official rarely has a problem discussing calls with coaches because they realize that they can only control call consistency, not the game outcome.  Karma will eventually balance out official ineptitude and crown the victory to the rightful champ. Karmic gods are dispatched to balance out human ineptitude, but even these ethereal officials don't get to pick winners or losers since GOD is a fan of the competition, not of Tim Tebow or any of the teams involved.

Congratulations remain in order for the New England Patriots who walked off of the stage with the crown this season.  Deflate-Gate karma appeared to be against them as the game neared its end, but intelligent fans think Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll sealed his teams fate by tempting fate with a goal line pass.  That play was the best hope for the Patriots who needed a pass play more than anything for a last chance at victory. NFL Superbowl karma should never be challenged so blatantly, and Carroll's arrogance quickly became the Patriots blessing. In essence, running stupid goal line plays in the Superbowl is a bigger karmic infraction than letting a little air out of the football during a bad weather AFC title game.

Nonetheless, somebody let the air out of those footballs, and somebody needed to pay for it.

Wouldn't want to be Boston right now.

Is it just me. or does it seem like Boston is getting flattened with snow for what happened to those footballs? Though most of us do hate the Patriots, only HE controls weather patterns, and boy has HE focused a great deal of post Superbowl attention (see; snow) on the championship city of Boston.

By the time Boston gets to move around to celebrate the thrill of victory, the thrill will be gone. For certain there's nothing that the NFL can do that will be worse than the punishment New England is receiving right now.

Does The Media Exclude Themselves From The Reflections They Create?

What is the cost of freedom?

If indeed there is a vital necessity for America, the land of freedom- home of the brave, our media is the vital conduit of the freedom we enjoy, a virtual mirror if you will.

Under president Bashar Al-Asaad, Syria was a mess
long before ISIS came to take over.

The value of the American media is its relentless pursuit of the truth.  Even at the risk of death, western media culture- lead by the red, white and blue, is the watchdog to the world at large. In essence, freedoms hope stands at the listening side of the interview microphone.

Yet, on the other end of the recording stands a human being with all the natural frailty that every human experiences.  Most people simply see the mic or camera as an opportunity to connect others or to connect ourselves with our world, but a sacred few recognize them as the mantle in which more wrong than right is likely when not handled with care.When any modern political leader finds them self at the wrong end of the microphone, the challenge of prudent rhetoric comes to fore.

Why Should We Share A Plan?

The most wise and lucid response to the matter called radical Islamic terrorism came when the man in tan said, "we don't have a plan..... yet".  In reality, we still do not know the plan for what will become of Syria even as we fight to help the good guys of Iraq maintain all of the hard work we did when removing Sadaam Hussein. Longstanding unrest in Syria has opened the doors to ISIS fighters anxious to enact their Islamic social engineering plan on any middle eastern soil that they can acquire. Any plan for Syria will take years and multiple presidents to play out and will be dictated by the long-term will of those desperate for an Islamic state, not those hopeful to stop it.  Millions of Muslims actually support the caliphate mission of ISIS (including 16% of citizens in France) even if they despise their methods of achieving it.

Syrian president Bashar Al-Asaad is a failed leader of a dangerous nation, but many other nations of the middle east came into existence with similar sectarian violence- Syria is just the poster child of such disarray. The fact that the face of radical terror found Syria suitable for caliphate building should have been quite predictable.

Can WE ever remove the stick?

America can (and should) find a way to encourage Iraq into accepting our long-term assistance against the forces of ISIS and against sectarian violence as a whole, lest they become an exact reflection of Syria. What that demands is a military presence that mirrors our presence in Germany, in which roughly 100,000 soldiers maintain a strong security prop, a prop that could increase given the unrest between Ukraine and Russia.  New and evolving strategic locations in the world demand a necessary presence that America will simply have to come to grips with. Worldwide unrest demands an ongoing US presence in every strategic location that we can assume without inciting the kind of growth in radical response that will outweigh the value of our presence.   Call it occupation or protecting our best interest if you must.  The necessity of supporting the fight against terror may not force American boots to the ground, but it will force America to become the backbone of whatever boots  assume the job. In other words, propped up armies must never have the stick pulled out too quickly.

President Obama has essentially sent this kind of American boots on the ground leadership to Iraq already, but he can't publicly emphasize their role or their clear and present danger if he hopes to remain the president who also brought our men home from Iraq. Even Afghanistan has a residual force (9,800 troops) left behind that most Americans are oblivious to. Two years remaining in office will be way too long  to think that air strikes alone will allow this president to delay detailed actions in Iraq and Syria, so Obama must recognize that the microphones  and cameras are circling around him, and a more specified plan must materialize.

What are you going to do about the beheading's?  What about that burned pilot?  How are you going to supplant ISIS and Asaad all at the same time? Why did you wear a tan suit to a press conference?

Does the media pressure politicians into
compromising America's security?

The right answer is often, "I don't know" or "we are still formulating a plan" because  world problems and their questions evolve faster than solutions ever will.  When WE become cursed by the need to find the one who has the answers, WE end up with a bunch of plan-less people who talk in circles until WE forget the original question.  There may never be a publicly shared Syrian Plan because there are no good options that are pleasing to the ears, only several bad ones.  Not one military general or political leader has a reasonable answer about Syria that won't send America right back into a REAL war again.

Maybe real war is the right answer (despite our war fatigue)?
Whether real war, fake (airstrike) war or NFL football, having a plan and telling your plan are prehistoric philosophies that only help to inform  and incite an enemy that does not deserve advance notice.  Since critics will criticize regardless of the detailed plan, detailing a plan only helps politicians to appear as if they have a plan to begin with.  Once you actually accomplish your goals, the successful plan will reveal itself  anyway, so detailing a plan often opens it up to criticism and failure.  Thanks to the western media, whether its in our best interest or not WE say too damn much!

Strategic ignorance is calculated brilliance in disguise and can produce dividends in areas beyond a Superbowl pursuit.  Marshawn Lynch and Bill Belichick can't be the only two people in the world smart enough to proceed carefully when in the presence of media, but modern politicians seem confused by the lessons of these grid iron greats. Politicians once wrote the book on how to be functionally vague, but its beginning to seem as though they've never read it.  In a nation in which the next campaign begins when the last one ends, the once reasonable hope for international affairs free of political posturing is becoming a distant memory as unprepared politicians open their mouths to give answers long before they have even thought about the questions.

Christians who've closely read Gen 1:26-27 have had to
reconcile a connection between  evolution and creation.

Politicians like Scott Walker (Gov. WIS) have traveled across the globe recently in an effort to convince voters in England to give a preliminary thumbs up to the next president of the United States of America, because they think step one for walking into the white house is acquiring the consent of the royals.  More often than not, those rebellious royals are forcing would be presidents to fumble footballs slick with oil.  Political football has always been a slick game in which the smart politician pre-cleans the balls and maintains a keen view of the sidelines to avoid running out of bounds.  If Scott Walker had already prepared his nuanced view of evolution instead of convincing himself that a pro-God Governor of Wisconsin was being touted for his business acumen, he would have never needed to punt the 'evolution' football or to later rebutt and retweet a nuanced view.  Being vague is okay, but today's media no longer allows political leaders to get away with punting the football, so you had better avoid or prepare yourself for the microphone and camera, mirrors that reflect regardless of pretense or punt.

Let Us Make Man In Our Own Image  -Genesis 1:26

Humans are a reflection of our divine creation- of each other, and of society as a whole. Within the success and failures of this society that we've created for ourselves lies the hope for tomorrow.  Sometimes life beats you down until your last best hope comes from another persons failure. By shoving microphones and cameras in the face of another, we can be entertained by their unlikely success or revel in the bruises that they get while tripping and falling on tape.  Some of the players in this performance are on the quest for power while others actually derive power from the pain of someone else.  Public disclosure does allow your pain to be my business, but at what point do WE compromise the quality of our existence for the right to be empowered?  As we seek to expose and heal the depths of our own depravity, the cameras and mics have become a caustic mirror that WE are using to replay and continuously expose unhealed wounds.

Mirrors Are Good?

Mirrors are healthy for healthy people, but the sickest of human beings typically shun the mirror or destroy them altogether. WE should never stop using mirrors just because some people can't stand reflections, but we have to recognize that the faces the media hopes to expose with their mirrors are never totally someone else.

In the end, the only people WE can actually fix reside on the other side of the mirror.

Has The Supreme Court Already Decided On Marriage Equality?

The tea leaves told me that Immigration would be the next great big shoe to drop in American culture when firm legislation is finally established to deal with it nationwide. 

I'm going to the organic food store to get some new tea leaves because Marriage Equality might win the race.  Healthcare seems deeply enough entrenched to not worry about its future anymore, so the checklist of social ills in America has both check marks and eraser smudges all over it these days. Education is sadly sliding all across the land, but stubborn states who demand autonomy will force another run at federal legislation, such as No Child Left Behind, or an acquiescence towards our current endless cycles of research and development (see; trial and error) in education.  

Thanks to the forward thinking of our youth, and an extreme ambivalence towards marriage in general, America might finally realize that love is WAY too complicated to try and force it into our social engineering machine, which breaks as many things as it holds in place.  Do you recall that joke that heterosexual liberals would use saying, "homosexuals deserve to be just as miserable as the rest of us"? When you look at marriage statistics and America's lack of affinity towards getting and staying married, it makes the humor of that joke lose its punchline.  Marriage used to get easier from the outside looking in perspective of our married grandparents lives.  In hindsight, grandpa was just a whole lot better at ignoring my restless grandma than modern day grandpa could ever be.  Watching today's old couples getting a divorce, or chasing after love in their latter years tells you all you need to know about the evolution of modern marriage.

Now, even the highly esteemed justices of the American Supreme court are angling towards granting gay couples the misery that hetero couples have free access to.  While several states have already fixed the disparity in marriage, many other states are currently fighting tooth and nail for the right to insure that only hetero couples ride the roller coaster we call modern marriage.  Time and time again, heterosexuals are proving to be just as utterly dysfunctional with love as their homosexual counterparts, so the sacred right of exclusivity is losing its reason.  Biblical morays used to rule the day, but even spiritual leaders have come to accept that, even if homosexuality is a sin, it can not be treated as a sin more extreme than the other sins from the bible, which does not assign a stack rank to human behavior- or misbehavior if you will.

The final analysis of marriage is that the paper will never insure love and the love will never be defined by a piece of paper.  What defines a marriage is uniquely special for every couple, and the strength of the unity defines the family units that contribute to the society we enjoy.  Homosexual couples are a real and significant part of society and our best hope that they "get over it" has been insulting to gays and embarrassing for any forward thinker.  My gay family deserves love just as much as my non-gay family, but sometimes we (especially black families) give more love to our jailbirds than our gay boys- as though being gay is worse than a crime.

It should be enough of a sign that the ultra conservative state of Alabama has given in on gay marriage, but  those in Alabama against gay marriage quickly objected to the will of the people, forcing the issue to be addressed by the Supreme Court of the land.  The Supreme Court refused to block Alabama's law prompting conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to clarify the message behind the message.  AP reports that, "He (Thomas) criticized his fellow justices for looking "the other way as yet another federal district judge casts aside state laws," rather than following the customary course of leaving those laws in place until the court answers an important constitutional question.", suggesting that the forward movement on gay marriage needs to wait for the Supreme Court to decide.  Justice Thomas seems unclear that 37 states have already legalized gay marriage as he tries valiantly to create a short-term out for the remaining holdout states of America.  

What they are buying time for is an inevitable course that the Supreme Court has essentially taken action on by their inaction (just as Thomas suggested in his dissent).  What has been determined is the standard even while the process of standardizing rages on.  What we have concluded is that being gay is hardly the worse sin on the planet and might be under re-evaluation as a sin at all with a closer examination of human hormones and human nature overall. The genetic design of procreation only tells about how we are to maintain human population, not the love story that sustains human families- and nothing seems to suggest that homosexual parents will automatically have homosexual or imbalanced children.  In fact, studies show that there is no social disadvantage at all to being raised with gay parents .

I personally had to come to grips with my own homophobia that was most likely rooted in my religious upbringing.  Other religious folks have done the same, and these days churches don't have to be exclusive to gay christian's because more and more regular churches are accepting gay members. Since the blood of grace covers all of our sin, even the concept of sexual sin should not compel us to expel our gay brethren from their rightful place in society and from the necessary legal standing that allows families to live and love equally. 

Marriage equality is about Family, a word that is forged in love and forever bound by its power.

Was Craig Stephen Hicks Trying To Retaliate Against Radical Islam?

The first black American president, who is singularly responsible for fixing our tattered history with race as well as the worldwide problem called radical Islam, can not begin to say these words, so I will have to do it for him.

Told you so!

We told you that stupid people who are as hate filled as the radicals who claim Islam would someday confuse the difference between radical Islam and regular Americans who are also Muslims.  Now it is crucial- for those who don't want to hear this from me or the president- to rush to insure that we don't connect the UNC Chapel Hill murders with a hate crime.  Despite various reports stating that the killer had repeatedly gone to the victims home with a gun to address various concerns, a concerted effort is being made to discredit these accounts.

Police and the wife of the killer have already moved to clear her husband, and taint the jury pool, with a quick press conference (organized by police) in which the killers wife insured America that her husband did not respond out of any particular hate for Muslims, but was infuriated by an ongoing parking dispute.

A parking dispute?

Are we to assume that this man was going to every door of every person in the apartment complex with gun in tow, using words of intimidation?  Early reports do say that he was a feared person in the complex, but no non-Muslim neighbors have claimed the same intimidation that had repeatedly occurred with the three students.

According to CNN, "All three victims, Deah Barakat, 23, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and Razan Abu-Salha 19, were Muslim. And given their religion and comments the alleged shooter apparently left on a Facebook page, many social media users wondered what role the victims' faith may have played."

Accused murderer, Craig Stephen Hicks, 46.

Although the suspect, 46 year old Craig Stephen Hicks, has been charged with murder, the concern resonates as to whether or not this is more properly pursued as a hate crime as well.  Moreover, is Hicks now the face of why there is little to gain with emphasizing the Muslim claim of radical killers?  If it is utterly vital that we tag certain radical terrorists with their Islamic claims, isn't just as necessary to tag those who hate religion accordingly too? Hicks is a proud atheist and is now jailed as an example of the expanded risks associated with hate run amok.

Anger over a parking dispute doesn't cost someone their lives without something deeper at work.  Hicks clearly had something deeper at work and he is not alone in his sentiment.  Where there is one Craig Hicks there are two who are convinced by the background noise they hear regarding radical Islam which helps to bolster the displaced hatred that they've long since espoused.  If you need a reason to fear your neighbor, or an impetus to "deal" with the problem, today's media will foot the bill for you.

Critics of our president like to claim that he is simply afraid to call radical Islam by name. In actuality it's true. The president is afraid of saying Islam when describing radical killers, and Craig Stephen Hicks is the exact reason why. In his mind, Hicks probably thought he was doing something good for America in the long run and he probably only needs one juror who shares these FOX news fears and is sympathetic to the idea that regular citizens will have to do what  FOX claims our president will not.

FOX and the fearful are dreadfully wrong on this one, but my hope remains on the notion that Hicks is an extremist', thus an exception- not the rule, and should be trivialized as an unlikely lone wolf that won't spark copy cat criminals and wasn't inspired by the fear of radical Islam.  

When confronting evil and hate, Hope is always a part of the Strategy.

President Obama Compares Birth Of Radical Islam With Christian Crusade

You had better believe that I am a soldier in the army of the Lord.

All of the years of my life that I have sung that tune, straight out the the American black protestant movement, I always had to rationalize what it really meant, or would someday mean to be a soldier of any sort realizing that most soldiers risk death in battle.  The mind of a child is impressionable, and we had all better believe that the face of modern day radical Islam was formed in the womb, not just via internet recruiting. Whether Christian, Islam or Jew, the eschatology of the Abrahamic faiths involve the hope of life "ever more" and the expectation of "laying down" your life in preparation for the unending hope of salvation.

This Sunday's debate has the world questioning the value of the comparison that president Barack Obama recently made between today's radical Islam and yesterday's Christian crusade during the National Prayer Breakfast.  Apparently, the 800 years of separation in time between these events doesn't justify a reasonable example of what can happen when a religious caliphate rises among us, so some have compared the christian claim of killers like the Ku Klux Klan whose exploits are not so ancient, and who also justify their behaviors on the grounds of religious authority. The counter claim  to this is that even the Klan doesn't wave religion in the forefront of their message nor have they organized a military to take over countries.  The hope seems to be targeted at identifying ISIS as something other than angry humans with religion as their justification.

Righteous Indignation
 The beauty of religion is the detriment of it as well.  What can strengthen us to handle the challenges of life can empower us towards the sin of righteous indignation and ultimately proselytizing to the extent of life and death decisions.  There would be no foundation to any religion if convincing and converting were not at the core of each religious agenda.  Christianity might uniquely claim a power of conversion that is done to you and not by you, but that claim is widely disputed by Christian's themselves, especially those Christians who stake their life upon the necessity of coming to Christ versus accepting Christ who chases us down with God's gift of grace. Christian Crusaders were much more violent than modern Christian's, but chase you down Christian's must have lead the Crusades.

It is sad that the religion of forgiveness has yet to accept forgiveness towards OUR own days of barbarity.  Any Christian who dares challenge Obama's Crusade comparison is akin to an excuse making sinner who has yet to come to terms with the depth of their own depravity.  What Obama was hoping to convey is the nature of humanity, which has evolved relative to technology, but remains essentially unchanged relative to compassion for life.  The existence of war hasn't changed over the 800 years since the crusades nor have the reason's for war.  Some wars are for money or power or influence and some are still for the sake of religion......still.

All religious endeavors work to expand the industry, not deflate it.  Religion- or the division of spiritual thought- thrives on the premise that one ideology is more righteous than the next. ISIS is not Al-Qaeda but it is an off-shoot because they disagree politically and thus religiously about the approach and urgency of the Islamic caliphate, which recognizes no separation between church and state.  In their approach, ISIS has placed all of Islam in a position of defending themselves against an angry world that is simply uneducated about denominational distinctions within Islam.  Islam is not yet Christianity when it comes to denominational disagreements, but given time they will surely fix all of that. For now, those we call radicals simply believe as they were raised to believe from birth.  How we live or die for a cause isn't simply an idea that rises, it must be raised from the doctrine and the songs of our birth.

I eventually reconciled my role as a soldier in the Christian army, and I also learned that if I hold my peace and let the Lord fight my battle..."Victory, victory shall be mine".  I don't imagine such a pacifist melody resides in the households of radical Islam.


What Did We Expect?
ISIS should have been the ultimate expectation and direction that religion (which is of the devil) would take Islam given the signs that had developed within the age old Sunni/Shia dispute- a dispute whose violence lives in the lands where Islam was birthed.  Elsewhere in the world, Muslims have long since rationalized the absurdity of a religious war to affirm the lineage of Muhammad and have conformed to the more peaceful tenants of their faith while shunning those that uphold violence as a conformation tactic.  Though westerners should not tolerate the violence that inevitably spills into western society, we should also not expect to resolve every aspect of the religious evolution that Islam is experiencing.  Some aspects of Islam's evolution will continue to involve the bloodshed of those who have always died in the name of religion, including several innocent bystanders.  We can try hard to take sides (which is impossible), or we can try even harder to minimize the fall out by protecting the innocent from a war that has very little to do with them, even if it appears to be all about them right now.

As the Christian Bible declares that all have sinned and fall short of the glory, WE should extend that thought into the realm of religion itself, which has a track record of failure that is consistent across all beliefs and denominations.  The failure of religion is the reason for the necessity of salvation- a concept which is consistently accepted across all Abrahamic faiths.  Religiosity, on the other hand, see's the unsaved as a representation of someone pathetic other than ME- while God says that accepting salvation only makes us aware of how pathetic we are, not less pathetic.


Humanity Is One

In the spirit of oneness, Christian Crusader's sought to save the world from peril by removing the sin that separates mankind from God. What they chose to do was depraved. Removing ourselves from the depravity that we call the Crusades is how we run the risk or repeating it in other ways.  Accepting the depravity of humanity's past is how we gain the wisdom to navigate through today's and tomorrow's depravity- because the word humanity includes everyone.
  

Jordan Retaliates Against ISIS. Do The Ends Justify The Means?

My wife typically refrains from the hours of news information that I digest through every media outlet I can.  I even stream public radio through the headphones just so I can get the "old news" version of the daily news and not the slanted politicized national news that taints most television airwaves. When ISIS decided to up the ante recently by burning the Jordanian pilot alive, even my wife couldn't turn away.

My hunch is that ISIS hoped she wouldn't turn away this time since the beheading's- that we don't fully televise anyway- have lost their impact.  Beheading's are old school tactics, so the propensity to turn back tortures clock speaks of an organization reaching for anything that it can grab hold of.  For a while, the beheading's achieved the purpose, but eventually one blurry video of a dying victim in an orange suit starts to resemble the next blurry video.  President Obama is limping his way towards the finish line of his tenure and never believed in the idea of fanning the terrorism flame anyway.  He came into office with the mission of ending our middle eastern wars and he hardly intends to leave office with a battalion of US soldiers waiting to be brought home by some other president.  If we are to return to the battlefields of Iraq, and now Syria, it will not be from another beheading.

But has burning someone alive changed the game?

The burning certainly has my wife wondering why we wouldn't just go blow them up and be done with it.  Typically, our response to every provocation is to blow them up and try to be done with it, but ISIS is a 30,000 soldier (and growing) fighting force that has taken over lands occupied by well over 1 million people.  The easy way to get rid of those 30,000 is to get rid of the million as well.  Everything else is a surgical process of weeding the needle out of the haystack that leaves you stuck in the middle east for a long time.

The pilot was from Jordan but ISIS is attacking humanity.

This fight must be lead by those most impacted by it, but even they are vulnerable to react impulsively. One of the hostages that  Jordan decided to kill was an Iraqi suicide bomber who only became captured because her chest bomb didn't go off.  She is alive today as a result of technical difficulties and her release would have certainly given her the opportunity to fix that error.  Jordan may feel better for having killed an Iraqi woman (women are typically excluded from these horrific acts) but have they elevated the cause of those who oppose Islamic extremism?

Of significant note is the digital production quality of the video.  Though it may have been a Jordanian pilot that was killed, the video targets western civilization and western sensibilities.  It pursues the kind of barbarism that would enrage Jordan and provoke the west into doing something more than drone strikes and military aid to the Kurds.  This is Pearl Harbor for ISIS except they have to send their suicide planes one beheading- or burning at a time.  Nothing says legitimacy like inciting a world war, and if ISIS can pull it off, they solidify their place in the spectrum of terror groups as the leader of the pack.

As long as the world remains disjointed in their response to ISIS, ISIS wins this war.  Collectively we can easily defeat this foe, but collectivism is not a characteristic of worldwide politics.  Jordan has fed the monster with their response to ISIS and so have we.  We must accept the negative impact of giving ISIS publicity in order to counter it with properly weighted opposition.  Some of it will happen in a traditional way but much of our war with ISIS will have to be fought in a new way that has yet to be developed.  Deflating ISIS will require a combination approach of every military and non-military counter effort that we know of- and a few yet imagined. The rules of engagement will have to be altered to address an enemy that doesn't behave by rules.  They're not even afraid to be known.

We Know Who They Are!!
Defining the enemy could be an important first step if it were not for the willingness of this enemy to define themselves.  Their behaviors define them and the scene of their behaviors clarifies their location.  Defining war against radicals is difficult because who they are is an evolving definition.  They come from all areas of the world and will eventually make the entire world their battlefield if allowed to operate freely.  Stopping terror is as impossible as ending serial killers.  While terror tactics are harsh and enraging, their outcomes are about the equivalent of a serial killer.

Thinking Like Killers

When we begin to win against terror, we will behave much as it does.  That will demand the courage to stand tall in the face of the inevitable mistakes while extracting embedded terrorist', but it will also demand the courage to stand tall in the face of human rights groups who will scream about covert strikes that America reveals only after the damage is done.  Gaining secret intelligence and responding to it with secret force will put terror on the run but it will also send American's chasing for information.  Terrorists that we kill NEED the news report more than they needed the bullet in their head and our demand for information feeds their need.

Fighting a war of legitimacy demands an enemy, and while middle eastern radicals add the US to their vast list of enemies, we only legitimize their war by publicly acknowledging them as we do or by killing sympathetic hostages in response.  Did Jordan consider executing these hostages by fire and then creating a video as well? Even without similar nastiness, ISIS is using Jordan's retaliation as a recruiting tool so that they can gain 5,000 while losing 2 sympathizers.

In the face of any war, the ends have to justify the means.

Religious Morality Has Created A Sick Fear Of Vaccinations

Andrew Wakefield started it and the world ran with it.

Vaccinations work but Wakefield's 1998 report (published in The Lancet) gave rise to the notion that autism and bowel disease had been caused by the MMR vaccination. My kids were raised in this era so my wife and I contributed to the hysteria. When we couldn't find immunization forms or were too lazy to haul the kids to the hospital, we used the exemptions ourselves. Though we had heard these reports while raising our five daughters,  we didn't realize who Wakefield was or that he had caused the scare that allowed us to put off grueling doctors visits with little babies in tow. As it turns out, the state of Colorado is the worst in the nation for vaccinations.

Wakefield, who no longer has a license to practice medicine as a direct result of this hysteria, allowed parents like myself a way to avoid hours in a doctors office full of crying kids and babies waiting to cry some more from a series of shots that many parents can hardly stand to watch.  Wakefield might have opened the door to freedom of choice, especially as it relates to the field of untested medicines, but he most likely lost his license to practice medicine as a result of junk science.

There is no corroboration of Wakefield's finding but there remains this state by state option to vaccinate or to believe that  the disapproved Wakefield was on to something.  Wisconsin Republican House Rep. Sean Duffy declared that he would like to pick and choose which vaccinations fit his morals while raising his children. Duffy, who married the mother of his 7 children one year after Wakefield published his junk, remains convinced that there is a moral component connected to the choice to vaccinate or not to vaccinate our children.  Typically that declaration is a hidden message against the HPV vaccine that is being suggested as a proven method of limiting the risk of cervical cancer created by the infectious environment created by the act of sex.

The Morality Clause
For some time, religious exemption allowed some parents to morally claim a reason against protecting our children and the children they encounter. States who have realized the source of the non-vaccination hysteria have moved to remove the moral exemption that places everyone at risk (students can't attend public school without vaccinations), but another vaccination came along to expand on the fear that Wakefield already developed towards vaccines.

Since the rise of the HPV vaccine, the persistence with comparing vaccinations and morality lives on.  There is no reasonable connection between being vaccinated and being promiscuous, but somehow those who oppose the HPV vaccine think that having it is just a formula for free sexual behaviors.  Apparently the risk associated with the HPV vaccine can also be mitigated by limiting the number of sexual partners, but the notion that taking it means you intend to have multiple partners is sickening to me.  It assumes that any of us will be able to predict the sexual behaviors of our children and withholds a life saving vaccine as a dangling carrot against the potential of more than one sexual partner. The mere notion assumes that God intends deadly illnesses for sexual sinners. Even if this were true, and it is not, parents who would rather their own children get the worst of God's anger are distorted about God- vaccine's, and distorted about sexual behaviors of average adult people.

States who dare to push the HPV vaccine have indirectly disrupted the acceptance of vaccinations overall.  We raised our children during the initial trials of the HPV vaccine and had it pushed at our five daughters fresh off of the fear that Wakefield already produced towards MMR.  We declined, but our concerns with the HPV were not moral,  we just didn't want our daughters to be a part of a new medicine recall.  We certainly have encouraged our adult daughters to get the HPV vaccine because vaccines work and diseases are not a direct result of sin.  Sometimes even the innocent get sick.

Aside from religious exemption, vaccinations are the law.  Unfortunately, religion has such a wide brush of definition that even lazy and uninformed parents have found the religion to sign the waiver and send their kids to school without vaccinations. Thanks to herd immunity, the vaccinated herd has primarily kept the lazy and religious kids safe from illness, but it only takes one case of the measles to overtake the herd quickly.  VERY QUICKLY.

Measles travel easily through the air and they remain in a room for hours after the infected person leaves the room, making every person that enters that room susceptible to the illness.  Fear of vaccinations that lead to religious exemptions has reduced the amount of vaccinated people within the entire herd making all of us more susceptible to catching measles.  Even if you have been vaccinated, you can catch the illness, but with a greater chance of survival once you catch it.

Simply put, the measles are bad, and vaccinations are good. Don't be lazy or morally stupid.

Superbowl Ending Proves Brady The Best (..and God Loves Football)

Thank God that the Patriots won the game.

Not that God has a vested interest in football, but there were reason's to wonder when an obvious incomplete pass became the impossible completion, ala' David Tyree.  Once again the game appeared to be captured by a miracle that would leave Tom Brady walking away with an empty feeling that he had become accustomed to over recent history.

Camera's had already locked in to capture Brady's reaction as video evidence captured that Jevon Kearse had truly captured that ball.  72% of American citizens watched to see what Brady would do this time.  His moment of dejection was not overly emphatic but it was extremely revealing.  The deepness of his despair even tempered his usually bodacious victory actions that were soon to erupt.  This time, Brady looked thrilled shocked and amazed.  His Serena Williams victory leaps showed spontaneous jubilation and not the calculated spite that he usually stores up for his legion of detractors.

Moments before his joyous jump, Brady was preparing himself to stare down those detractors once again without that sly grin of victory as his primary weapon.  The miraculous nature of this victory left  Brady lost  in between his preparation for the fire filled walk of shame that he'd warmed himself to endure and the jubilant outcome that he didn't even support down the stretch, waiting despondently for the bitter end that never arrived. To his credit, nobody ever expects the kind of miracle that the Patriots received.  They probably considered allowing the touchdown and seeing if they could tie the game for overtime.  The arrogance of the Seahawks and film study of a rookie cornerback were the instruments that played the final victory song for New England, but nothing less than divine intervention forced shut the mouth of the most blessed quarterback in the history of the game.

Brady ascended to the top of the heap because he played just as smoothly and ruggedly as did the only quarterbacks that stood above him. He ascended to the top of quarterback mountain because he has played consistently well for the length of his career. He just won his fourth championship and has the ability to win more if grace see's fit because Tom Brady was blessed for the job.  What does the divine ordination of the supreme quarterback look like?  It looks like the luck of an injured Drew Bledsoe followed by a few fortunate championships won and then lost and then won again.  This victory, the one that pushed Brady over the top, had the kind of divine intervention that made Brady resemble Moses when returning from his encounter with the flaming bush.

His words sounded of a happy winner, but his face glowed of the chosen blessed, unsure why and how things ended as they did. Brady made some mistakes, but he did his part to give his team a chance at victory.  The victory was snatched and returned to the hands of the Patriots in such a manner that humbles the most prepared and the most pompous alike.  Had New England lost the game on the field, then questions over the under-inflated footballs might have persisted.  Since they won and Brady played so well, the topic of questionable balls loses some air.  Even if Brady is found guilty of some misdoings, we know that he can throw a regular football and lead his team to victory while doing it. His tainted image that only grew more murky over recent weeks has been the only barrier between already being considered the best QB that ever played.  Yesterday, just as Brady had accepted that this goal would elude him for another year,   forces even greater than the player himself seemed to intervene to snatch away that moniker only to hand it back with his name in reinforced stitching

Brady was anointed by divine appointment, which is the only way such things should happen to begin with.  Like the coming to Jesus moment of religious conversion, Brady walked away from the Superbowl just as assured that he had earned his way into first place of all time as he was that his best efforts still demanded divine intervention.  What stained itself on the psyche of the greatest quarterback of all time is that, no matter how great you consider yourself to be, true greatness is as much a blessing as it is a gift.  His last two victories have probably been against one or both of the guys who will pass him by someday, which is also something of divine order.

Brady rises to the top in a way even he could not script.

I have never been a Brady fan and felt immediately sick for Seattle when Malcolm Butler picked off the pass, but I also felt an instant sense of ordination towards the best quarterback to every play the game.  The moment that the Patriot defense secured the game, no sense of hate or envy towards Brady clouded the moment for me.  What he took off of the field was a Lombardi trophy and an MVP award, but his ascension to GOAT (Greatest of All Time) came like a puff of smoke.

The spirit has spoken. Brady is the man and God does love football just like the rest of us.

Whose Cause Do WE Further By Saying "Islamic Terrorism"?

Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)

Does FOX exploit Kelly Ayotte for her
willingness to be the last critic standing?

"I think they should spend less time on being more politically correct about how we define our enemies and spend more time on figuring out how to defeat them", said Senator Kelly Ayotte (FOX News Sunday)
with her fresh new hair-do but old blabbering ability to be the last Senator beating a dead horse to death all over again.

To the credit of the republican party, and FOX news who blindly cosigns conservative ignorance, Ayotte has finally stopped crying Benghazi for FOX.   In its place are social media updates and Obama criticism in between social media updates.  These days, every network is a late edition of social media, but FOX maintains its unique rhythm by consistently bashing Obama.  The next Democrat president (since republicans are proving incapable of winning the oval office) will be tagged to Obama by FOX mostly because they won't be able to transition the attack in a way that will maintain ratings.

 Since FOX is the last bastion of republican sentiment 
 (nobody listens to radio anymore- sorry Rush),

How bout those gas prices, heh?

FOX embraces their self described label of being fair and balanced about as much as you hear them say it these days.  They know better than anyone how profitable Obama has been for them.  They also realize how disinterested their viewers become when they do anything other than bash Obama- so they connect him to every societal problem that they can.

The latest President Obama criticism is his unwillingness to focus on the fact that evil terror organizations terrorize in the name of Islam.  As a president, this is a really prudent policy in that so many non-radical Muslims die every day in the effort to defeat these radicals. EVERYBODY- even FOX news, agrees that the war against Islamic terror groups must be lead by a coalition of Muslim people, so how does anyone, especially a world leader, try to establish that coalition while using rhetoric that is offensive towards the people who must lead the coalition?  It's almost as though FOX, or anyone who attempts to achieve world peace through hostile rhetoric, is trying to sabotage our own interests.

And then it hit me.

John Boehner and Benjamin Netanyahu are no better by political posturing during an Israeli campaign season, behind the back of the elected leader of the USA.  Neither of these men achieve their own best interest in showing a willingness to be disorderly with diplomatic relations as it brings into question America's willingness to support this ally, especially if Netanyahu wins re-election.  If Israel were to be under attack tomorrow, it would not be Boehner that decides if WE save the day.

Mitch McConnell is behaving as a grateful soul after fighting tooth and nail to survive the bid against his senatorial seat this past election season, but he was also the guy who verbalized the mission of making Obama a one term president.  His words should have been an obvious expectation of anyone in his position of opposition, but we already know that party leaders focus on winning and not losing elections, despite the self sabotaging behaviors of modern republicans.  McConnell's words oozed with revelation that even he wishes he could have kept inside.  Yet, were republicans fully invested in John McCain or any one of their brethren who would have had to oversee the worst of America's economic demise? Did Mitt Romney and his republican backers downplay the recovery to the degree that it only hurt their ability to achieve the sentiment necessary for giving the job back to a white guy?

Was Barack Obama just another brother who got the job when the job was not so desirable? Was the likelihood of his failure and the do-nothing response of congress just an intensive effort to see Obama fail even at the cost of  a more rapid recovery and the confidence of the public at-large?

Paul Ryan, the budget hawk who republicans actually follow, seems to have many things that he agrees with within the president's SOTU/budget proposals, but verbalizing your agreement can get you ran out of town like Eric Cantor. The nation was ready to fix immigration when Cantor dared to allow a vote to occur in response to the overwhelming support that polls continue to reflect to this day. Right wing extremists (can we call them terrorists?) are not into recognizing a losing fight because America is the place where the impossible is always possible- especially if you are willing to lay your life down to defend against the freedom democracy creates- like blocking popular immigration bills or enacting voter restriction laws- or sharia law.

By golly, if this nation was founded by the right people, then its up to the right to make sure this nation remains rightly pure against the influence of too many Mexican immigrants or cheating voters.  It would be nice if all of America's undesirables would either self deport or agree to never vote, but they are not going to be allowed to comfortably belong lest it be over the dead bodies of those who oppose illegal amnesty and illegal votes.  Opposition to immigration reform will eventually die in one form or another, but how long will it take before we do what we know is right for America- like insuring the right to vote?

The rise of so many forms of republicanism says that conservatives are absolutely tired of being associated with the more or less extremes of their own ideology as well.  While it might not be too extreme to call a Libertarian a republican, it is extreme to think that they will ever convert the traditional republican given that the traditional republican is just as into big government as is the liberal.  Republicans who despise America's liberal disposal of unborn babies find no fellowship in conservatives who support these practices, hence the label RINO (republican in name only) or worse.

Liberals have extremist' too, but liberal kooks are so proudly kooky that the progressive movement doesn't have to disown its own, they just have to admonish them when they burn up ski resorts.  On the right, the  Islamic terrorism label fight is sustaining an entire network who is profiting from the fear of terror connected to Islamic extremism. If you are unsure if the word Islam is as significant to the behavior as the word extreme, then you should remind yourself that American's live peacefully in the midst of Islamic people everyday, so it must be something extreme that is driving the murderous behavior and not Islam at all.

Does anyone realize what Rand Paul
would do against ISIS? Is he presidential?

As republicans wait agonizingly to remove themselves of that sympathizing liberal (Obama) who won't venomously label extremism, they are confronted with the issue of defining their party label if they are looking to define the fight against him and them. Regular and extreme conservatives seem to want some boots on the ground, while Libertarians- the hottest growing wing of the party- are not into that save the world stuff.  If WE THE PEOPLE are to give the white house back to the conservative party, will it be a regular old republican, one that drinks the Tea or Rand Paul that  will lead the charge into the white house?  Even worse, will it be some amalgamation of the various republican labels creating a figure head leader unable to coalesce the disparate missions assigned to each label?

Nobody appreciates the rise in worldwide extremism and ISIS is a nuisance that could also be called a threat.  What was once only 3,000 recruits is now 30,000 fighters with a strong economic network and an even stronger guerilla marketing system of recruiting. Even with boots on the ground, tracking down 30,000 and killing them is not as easy as it sounds, especially since their death and captivity only adds to the recruiting efforts- which is why they are begging us to bring the boots.  Adding boots on the ground seems to make sense, but only because its the only thing we know to do when provoked.  In reality, boots on the ground would open the recruiting faucet to full throttle.  Absent an opposing soldier to kill, an ISIS recruit with an M16 has only the hope of waiting for another American drone to shoot at or a defiant Muslim group that would rather keep their town instead of handing it over. Eventually, 30,000 recruited soldiers have a limited amount of space that they can sensibly secure for very long any way, so recruiting is more vital than acquisition at this time.

Obama's policy against terror removes the visual enemy that new terror recruits need to justify their own existence.  If ISIS is so dangerous, they would not use 80's style beheading's to bolster their worldwide credibility. They wouldn't need boots on the ground to benefit their recruiting.  They wouldn't be backing up in the face of Kurds and drones, and most importantly, ISIS and those like them would not need to use the rhetoric of racial division to pit all Muslims against the world at large- but they do.  Every time we allow terrorist groups to take ill-spoken words and package them into a sound bite that seems as though the world hates Muslims, we further their cause and not our own.

In the end, the manner in which we fight our enemy is only connected to the label when the label is connected to the fight. We can shoot at them no matter what we call them, but calling them by the wrong label will only empower them  to recruit someone who will shoot back.

Why give them additional bullets?